


Finding Aid

by MadameHardy



Category: The Provenance Game -- Freya Marske
Genre: AU, Libraries, archives, archivists
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-24
Updated: 2013-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-05 23:21:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1099756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameHardy/pseuds/MadameHardy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Miss Audley has no patience with lack of organization.   One expects certain standards when one is a Master Archivist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finding Aid

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ryfkah](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryfkah/gifts).



_"Dusty, untended archive" my well-indexed catalogue_ , thought Miss Alleyn as she strode through the streets. Give her a thousand properly run archives overseen by properly trained archivists over a single amateur. Archivists treated their subject with an appropriate amount of caution. Dive into an amateur’s collection, and you might find ten harmless three-deckers and twenty never-to-be-read sermon collections higglety-pigglety on the shelves, with a vicious satiric broadsheet nestled next to the flyleaf of one blameless volume. 

Amateurs would tell you “Oh, it’s just bits of paper.” Archivists knew better. The critical difference between an archive and a pile of documents was that in an archive, _you knew where things were_. Even if the archivist was an utter crank and insisted on cataloging the collection by which statue stood in the niche above the shelves, there would _be_ a catalogue, and it would be, if not complete, accurate up to the time of creation, allowing for the depredations of researchers with sticky fingers.

Miss Alleyn was so very angry at the latest so-called scoop in the _Times_ \-- the journalist hadn’t “discovered” that pamphlet, he had merely asked Miss Alleyn to retrieve it, a transaction requiring all of twenty minutes start to finish -- that she set one foot in the middle of a substance best not named. She shook off the worst of it and strode on, trying to spot a boot-scraper attached to some house’s steps and mentally cursing all dog-owners everywhere. 

Ten minutes later Miss Alleyn arrived, sole decisively scraped, at the gates of the Palace. She presented her letter of introduction (a bond half-sheet with the Royal watermark, vibrating with the consciousness of its own importance) and was escorted inside.

The Palace itself was a disappointment. The hall she walked down was small, dark and shabby, the air was dank, and pervading the whole was a distinct smell of drains. Miss Alleyn hoped, devoutly, that no damp had gotten into the documents themselves. She winced when she was led down the stairs to the cellars. _If I had charge of this collection, I’d move it out of the Palace to somewhere better suited to preservation, some well-aired place . There’s no reason it has to be kept in the Palace itself._ But Miss Alleyn didn’t have charge of the collection, nor was ever likely to; the position Royal Archivist was a sinecure, given to political allies who coveted the title of nobility that came with it. If any Royal Archivist had ever come near an archive, it was only for a glass of port in the library.

The person who was actually in charge of the archive had a small, lightless cubbyhole lit by one flickering candle -- a tallow candle at that. He was a sharp-nosed young man who was, when Miss Alleyn entered, occupied in making anatomical sketches -- in ink -- at the bottom of what looked to her like an irreplaceable 17th-century Royal warrant. She bit back a denunciation; it wasn’t _her_ document to preserve, although technically it did belong to the Nation. She stood, seething, until the young person added the final flourishes to his sketch. _Not at all an accurate portrayal of the organs in question; I doubt he has ever seen them in the flesh._

After an ostentatious pause designed to convey his utter superiority to any possible visitor, the young man looked up. “Miss Audley?”

“Miss _Alleyn_. Am I speaking to the Royal Archivist?”

“I --” his chest inflated a bit -- “am the sub-Archivist in charge of Domestic Correspondence.”

“In that case, sub-Archivist --”

“You may call me Lord Charles --”

“In that case, _Lord Charles_ , may I ask why you have summoned a Master Archivist of the University?” _And “in all haste”, not that you seem to be paying much attention to that._

Lord Charles’s expression made clear how much importance he gave to the University and its representatives. “We’ve had a little contretemps, and it was thought that your services might come in handy.”

“What sort of contretemps, precisely?”

“We cannot locate a particular letter. Dusty old stacks of papers, you know how it is.”

MIss Alleyn clenched her teeth; none of the replies that sprang to mind would have reflected at all well on the University. After she gathered herself, she responded, “Is the letter in the catalogue?”

“Oh, I suppose there’s a list around here somewhere, but --” The wave of his hand expressed the sub-Archivist’s utter lack of interest in the subject. “I expect you’ll just have to dig. But hurry up, do.”

“You’ve summoned me here to do a _hand search_ through ‘stacks of papers’ for a single document?”

“Well, you certainly wouldn’t expect me to do it.” What he _could_ be expected to do, other than defacing the documents in his care, was left to the observer.

Enunciating each word precisely, Miss Alleyn enquired, “What is the document?”

For the first time there was a hint of worry in the sub-Archivist’s expression. “A bit of genealogy.”

“If you want it found, you had better be specific.”

“It’s a letter from one of Queen Mary’s ladies-in-waiting.”

“ _Which_ Queen Mary, which lady-in-waiting, and to whom?”

Lord Charles looked sulky. “Dowager Queen Mary of Modena, I don’t know which lady-in-waiting, to Queen Maria Clementina.”

“About?”

“Something about the King, it isn’t important.”

 _The hell it isn’t._ “The approximate date?”

“Sometime before 1735.”

 _Since that’s the date of Maria Clementina’s death, it seems likely._ “I see. Can you direct me to the 18th-century documents?”

Lord Charles waved a vague hand. “That chest over there. There may be a few more in the cellar itself, somewhere.”

It was just as well Miss Alleyn had left her paper-knife on her desk at the University. “I’ll start here, then. May I have a chair?”

Lord Charles picked up a hand-bell, rang it, and eventually a chair (somewhat rickety, and with the gilt worn off) was brought and placed before “that chest”. Miss Alleyn sat, placed her Gladstone bag on her lap, and pulled out a dainty ledger bound in tooled morocco, a gift from her parents on her achieving her Mastery. She opened the book and flipped from page to page, skimming the headings she had so carefully inscribed in ox-gall ink. ”Chemistry … Christianity ... Culinary matters” -- hardly likely -- “Diplomacy … Ethics …History" -- barely a quiver, that was odd -- “Inheritance”. And with that, the book vibrated straight out of her hands and nearly fell to the floor.

 _Oh, my. Oh, my indeed. A, lady-in-waiting to Mary of Modena, to Mary’s soon-to-be-successor, Maria Clementina Sobieska._ ("-ski"? A mental diversion on authority control was ruthlessly squashed.) Miss Alleyn turned over the pages to “Royalty, Succession of” and suddenly the chest began to shake. _Not important. Not important at all. Unless, perchance, you’d like to prove the legitimacy of the Jacobean succession._

Miss Alleyn reached into the chest, shuddering as she brushed away the frass, and unerringly located a single sheet of vellum. It began with an elaborate list of titles and continued through the customary compliments. Miss Alleyn turned the letter over; it was signed Lucretia Pretonari, Countess Vezzani. And in between … in between lay an eyewitness account of the birth of James Francis Edward, later James III.

Miss Alleyn stood. “I think this may be the document you require.” Lord Charles, abandoning the pose of indifference, snatched it from her hand. “That’s it! I don’t know how you --” he stopped. “Thank you for saving us some time. We shall forward our thanks to the appropriate department at the University.”

Miss Alleyn looked him in the eye. “As well as the customary fees, I’m sure.”

He scowled. “I would think that your patriotism -- all right, all right, I’ll see you’re paid.” He picked up the handbell and rang it. “You may go now.”

As Miss Alleyn followed the footman through the corridors and back to the gates, one thought dominated her mind. _Someday, somehow, one of us is going to take charge of those piles of papers. And then, God willing, I shall turn it into an archive._

**Author's Note:**

> This is based on the brilliant story "The Provenance Game", by Freya Marske. It's in the epub anthology "Fight Like a Girl", which I recommend enthusiastically.
> 
> Thank you to kurushi for last-minute beta.


End file.
